I mean, I'm not super comfortable discussing things on a personal level on the internet. I have stalkers, people leak my Facebook statuses and crap, people talk obsessively about me 12+ hours a day in some cases on Reddit and elsewhere, people had been fucking with me at home right before it all happened too. That's part of why maybe a lot of what I've said in the wake of this came off as vague and detached? I don't put my personal life on the internet in recent years.
I was really deep in depression and was dealing with PTSD from some heavy stuff that had happened, though, mainly, and I was having severe bouts of insomnia at the time. I was just starting to pull myself out of all that and was going to take a short break before the impending xf migration (lol) and had plane tickets already booked to go stay with a friend and re-center right when it happened.
Didn't conduct myself great in general in the heat of it all and it was an obvious nightmare from a PR standpoint, sure. I'm human, y'know? It both blindsided me and scared the shit out of me to be #metooed out of nowhere. I blocked that girl out of my life years ago for a reason.
Yeah I have "resources," like I lawyered up and talked to PR firms and whatnot, but a lot of those avenues were just looking to take advantage and extract as much money as possible from a vulnerable public figure, and I was in shock for the first few days and trying to navigate all the things happening internally on GAF. My IRL friend network got back to me with good PR connects and whatnot after a bit. The problem is that a week is an eternity during a scandal like that, and that's about how long it took to vaguely plant my feet on the ground and get to a functional headspace and get lawyers and PR, and by then the mods had already left and the board had been spammed with Reset adverts to a degree that was impossible to address and the mass exodus had already happened and the narrative had shifted to "it doesn't matter if the allegation is true or not."
I documented actionable evidence with my lawyers that discredits the BS story, but the consensus was that from a legal standpoint the allegation was already retracted when the Facebook post had been removed right after it was posted, legally an injunction can't be filed broadly against future statements because of free speech protections, and I had no interest in seeking monetary damages from her. That was all established about a month later, when the witch hunt had already run its course and the press wasn't interested anymore. A lot of major sources asked for comment initially, but I needed some time to center myself, yeah? Like, BBC Radio wanted a phone interview with me for example but it was plainly obvious to me that my initial comments sucked and weren't helping matters, so I focused on getting my shit together, pulling myself out of depression, cooling off, reworking things heavily internally with GAF and deciding where if anywhere to take it from there.
It's incredibly scary to be falsely accused of "sexual assault" (revised to "sexual misconduct" by the press). I was in a really, really vulnerable spot personally already, I was miserable with how the day to day with GAF was too, and I've never had my community turn on me like that before from the inside. I've kept things indie here even when it got huge, minimally monetized the site, never wanted to take money from the community, etc. It was so shocking that so many veteran posters here seemed to revel in burning the site down and calling me all sorts of outrageous stuff or telling me to kill myself.
I understand the other side of it too, especially with some distance, but I'm an eccentrically earnest and sensitive person I guess I would say, and the presumption of guilt and malice directed my way from so many people at the same time, on basically a worldwide stage, was really hurtful and I spent as little time on the internet as possible for a while in the wake of it, other than rebuilding NeoGAF's internal admin and keeping it vaguely operational. I tried to be around friends as much as possible and start properly addressing the depression and PTSD issues that had been miring me all year. I had multiple family medical emergencies come up within a week of the scandal breaking, too, and that's a whole separate thing I was dealing with that I'm not going to get into.
I mean, sincerely, it's endearing that you wrote fanfiction about how you would've handled it in my shoes, and everyone on the internet seemed to think they knew how to handle it like a pro, but I don't think anyone here has a great idea of how that would've actually gone down for them, all things considered. Mistakes were made, personally and professionally, and I'm not a saint or anything, but that allegation is totally made up. When the world demands a confession and apology for something that never happened, and throws you on the rack in the meanwhile, and you're already completely tilted before it had even hit, it's not a simple thing to navigate, I assure you.
Anyhow, I'm still here, like I said I would be, it just took some time to figure things out, assess where to take the site, and find a good group of people to make it happen. I received hundreds of supportive messages via PM on here, but I think it speaks to the intensity of the witch hunt that it was all private expression of support and very little was stated on the board itself. Anyone appearing to be associated with me in any way was attacked at the time. When you get blown up like this, there's an intense feeling of standing completely alone, and being single at the time and pretty distant from most of my friends all year didn't help matters going in.
That's about as specific as I'm willing to take things right now, I think. Does that help clarify a little on a human level?
If he hadn't tried so hard to cultivate this façade of globe-trotting, Muay Thai fighting, dick slinging badass these last 7 or 8 years, this plea for compassion and understanding might have a bit more weight behind it.
Most of us still remember the
"She'd probably fall in love with me 
" post or
"I have more muscle mass than Bruce Lee" or his braggadocious post about illegal mountain bike races in the rain and his calm and resolve from a thousand fights. If he was to admit some of his lies and was willing to confide that his online persona was the result of insecurity, I
might be able to dig up some sympathy for him from the depths of my cold, black heart.
Maybe.
